User:W.P. Norton

W.P. Norton is an independent American journalist and editor whose publishing credits include The Miami Herald International Edition, Institute of Modern Russia, The Capital Times, In These Times, The Progressive magazine, Moscow Guardian, and The Moscow Tribune, where he covered post-Soviet Russia from 1993 to 1995. Norton's work appears in the 2017 book "The Age of Inequality," a collection of 40 years' worth of journalism and essays from In These Times..

Norton is a University of Wisconsin-Madison alum and University of Chicago-certified editor. The Daily Cardinal student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published his first piece in 1985: a review of “The Shooting Party,” notable for being the last movie featuring venerable character actor James Mason. His longest association with any publication was with Isthmus, the alternative Madison weekly where he interned in 1986 and was a contributor until 1993.

In Moscow, Russia, Norton worked at The Moscow Guardian, Kommersant business weekly, The Moscow Tribune, and the American Chamber of Commerce. His AmCham work included writing news releases and promotional copy for a boutique PR agency associated with BBDO/Moscow. One of his Moscow Tribune articles, “Yavlinsky Offers Grim Assessment of Russian Reform,” is cited in a 2003 book by U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, “Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia After the Cold War.”

Norton's 1994 Moscow Tribune article "Crimewise" is also cited in a 2008 book, "Investigating the Russian Mafia: An Introduction for Students, Law Enforcement, and International Business."

In 1995 he joined the reporting staff of Madison’s Capital Times newspaper. By 1998 he earned two Milwaukee Press Club awards for interpretive reporting, wrote a news story for the New York Times, and uncovered the illegal activities of a school board member who was prosecuted for helping private interests torpedo a tax-hike referendum to fund maintenance of Madison’s public school buildings. He shared the Milwaukee Press Club’s first prize with a reporting team whose 1995 series cast new light on the culture wars over affirmative action. He came in second for a jointly reported 1996 project that took a sobering look at the ancient habits of heavy drinking that saturate the people, culture and economy of Wisconsin.

Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and Public Affairs commissioned Norton for the substantive manuscript editing of several projects concerning Russia in 2011. That same year, he overhauled the English-language website text of the Institute of Modern Russia, a U.S.-based pro-democracy think-tank dedicated to freeing jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He filed several articles on Russian topics for IMR, including “Rediscovering Russian America,” and “Privatization No Magic Pill,” a report on Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny.

Norton edited and ghostwrote his first book in 2012: an autobiography of Charlie Robinson, the Mississippi-born African-American restaurateur who wrote himself into the Chicago history books when he won the 1982 RibFest held by legendary Chicago newspaperman Mike Royko.

Editing the international edition of the Miami Herald in the Caribbean from 2014 to 2016, Norton covered the multi-million-dollar cruise ship industry, the annual Dominican Jazz Festival, racial tensions between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, natural disasters, and the sex trafficking industry.

W.P. Norton (talk) 23:54, 29 October 2012 (UTC)